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Originally posted by stevethornley

Well Forum Members, you are all due an update!

Old-timers might remember this thread from, wait for it, more than 3 years and nearly 3000 views ago and I thought I owed you all an update.

My son was 8 then, and the advice I had from Forum members along with Mike our, now, breeder friend, was invaluable to the success of this addition to our family. Needless to say, Kate the snake has been well looked after and, about this time last year, Jonah decided that he wanted to try breeding with her.

I am one to encourage and 'fuel the fire', so to speak, and we allowed him to take a lump sum from his college fund in the hope that he would try to pay it back in three years. He has a one year, a three year and a five year project (although I'm not allowed to share these with anyone!)

Last summer was spent adding his first morph, a pastel, and then a second large female, just in case Kate wasn't ready this year, and a Butter Pastel which he "couldn't resist because it was so pretty", and later a young female lesser which he wanted to grow on for his 3-year plan (can you guess what he might be aiming for?!).

We went through the whole IKEA wardrobe thing for housing only to end up with a viv stack because (a) most of the enjoyment for Jonah was seeing what the snakes were up to and (b) he wasn't strong enough to lift the larger tubs out with 2-3kg of snake inside, and he started putting pairs together last autumn.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Amy (the second large 'back-up' female laid a clutch of 7 eggs a couple of weeks ago, and they are now cooking nicely in his home-made incubator and due to hatch in mid July!

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this original thread all that time ago and to act as an encouragement to any parents or educators who are mulling over the idea of adding a Royal Python or any other snake or reptile for that matter, to their home or classroom. It's been a brilliant journey for my son and one which is still conjuring up surprises... he wants to one day be an exotics vet.

I've also helped him put his own website together at www.sussexroyals.co.uk and he has a Facebook page via his Mum's account as he's not old enough to have his own yet. He would be very happy if any Forum members with a FB account might 'Like' him and offer some words of encouragement. Oh, and he's used the Royal Python Forum logo on his 'Hints and Tips' page because we wanted to point people to this Forum and, particularly it's superb Care Section. Please tell us if we've infringed anyone's Copyright doing this. I am a musician by trade and take Intellectual Property Rights seriously - if I've done wrong, please tell me and I'll take it off and just put a text link in.

To close, a couple of snaps. I wish you all great success with your snakes.

Best Wishes and thank you

Steve (Jonah's Dad)





[URL=http://s1201.photobucket.com/user/stevethornley/media/Snake/AmysEggswithJonahedited.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://s1201.photobucket.com/user/stevethornley/media/Snake/Amyafterlayingedited.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://s1201.photobucket.com/user/stevethornley/media/Snake/Billhangingout.jpg.html][/URL]

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